


Not like this

by orphan_account



Series: Sarge & Princess [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky is in his feelings, F/M, Mild Language, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sarge & Princess, winterprincess week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 02:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17174123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Set almost 3 years fromWWTSC, Bucky finds himself unable to decipher if he wants to go home, but with a help of a friend, he finds the resolve to carry on.





	Not like this

**Author's Note:**

> For WintePrincess Christmas Week. Day 1: Home for the Holidays.
> 
>  

_Day 1: WinterPrincess Week (Sarge & Princess) _

 

 

He couldn’t go home like this. Incomplete.

 

He hated walking past mirrors or reflections of himself knowing that his resentment would only multiply ten-fold.

 

They were told to wait for reinforcements, and that’s exactly what they did for what seemed like weeks before a rescue team had flown out to extract them. MREs we’re going scarce, Sam ran out of wipes and forgot to say ‘I love you’ to his mom (to which the boys snickered as he made his confession), a scholarship waiting for Andre, a seriously ill father relying on Rob who’s out here in the middle of dirt hills, Stephen is about to have a baby boy and he, wanting to meet both his girls. A whole crew waiting to go home.

 

But a boy had stepped on a landmine, and he paid with an arm, of which in his guilt he feels could never amount to the pain of the family whose precious son was lost. And no medal could bring both his man and his arm back.

 

The first time he tried to make his bunk left the sad thing in shambles and upturned before somebody came to do it for him. He starts to get frustrated with the smallest of things. Like tying his hair or his boots, because he’s never had reason to take his arms for granted let alone his hands, but now every morning he wakes to count how many fingers and limbs he’s still got hanging. But even as filed out of the Humvee, he on the stretcher and Sam running along his side to the operating room, he thinks of the babe he wouldn’t be able to hold in his arms, and the thought alone breaks him down in pieces.

 

At that point, he thought he’d be spending Christmas on safe base, and it wouldn’t have been all that different because he’s spent almost every festive season on base but this time, he wanted to be home for the holidays. He thought of the puppy he wanted to get her, or the new set of brushes he found in an antique shop off of 3rdAvenue for her new commissions, or the leaking tap in her kitchen, the loosened bolt on the door to his bathroom, cleaning up after her when she’s done making her instant coffee because she somehow can’t get all the powder into the cup, instead they just seemed to have been sprayed everywhere on his kitchen counter. He even thought of the many socks he would find behind the couches or under the bed. Or the nursery in his apartment, the baby cot and all the delicate furnishings for their babe. The pale pink onesies and her little mittens also lost behind the couch of all places. The ultrasound pictures she would’ve no doubt stuck on his fridge. All of the things he’s never thought about before.

 

But he’s home now, after sending a reply to her text, awkwardly with one palm before he had to speak to Siri to relay the message, he’s finally home. Just partially there. He told her he would be home by the end of the week when really, he wanted to gather himself before finally speaking to her. Before seeing her. And her, seeing him.

 

He laid in his bunk with his earphones in, fingers tapping on his stomach following a steady reggae tempo, eyes closed but he feels an emptiness at his side. He knows he doesn’t have it in him to see her. At least not yet, because the only thing that made it home, was his message that said:

 

_Off to work again._

_Will be gone a few days._

What he meant was: ‘Hey I’m lying. I’m here. I’m scared. I’m not ok. I lost an arm. I’m not really sure if you would still love me like this.’

 

“You ain’t packed up yet?”

 

He peeks out of one eye and finds his good friend Sam by his bed. His good friend… always so upbeat and full of life even while bullets are ricocheting around him, finds a way to make the tour tolerable, even enjoyable especially when he blasts his 70s playlist.

 

“Your girls’ here to get you.”

 

A pause goes by. He takes a few breaths, closes his eyes and prays to whatever deity he doesn’t worship that it wasn’t true. That she’s not here. That she doesn’t want him home. That she’s found someone else. That she’s forgotten about him. Yet here she is, and there he was. Pretending.

 

“What d’ya think is gonna happen to me when I get home Sam?”

 

“Well, your girl will pick you up, maybe go to Walmart or CVS, get some stuff she’d say she ran out of, throw in a bottle of wine or maybe she’ll take you to George’s, get some pizza, celebrate.”

 

He scoffs. What could they possibly celebrate? That he managed to keep the other 3 limbs of his body? Maybe it’s a dinner where she tells him she’s found someone else while he was away. Or maybe as soon as she sees him, she’d probably change her mind. While that would be devastating, maybe it would be for the best. Because she deserves the best, and he’s at a lack for body parts to give exactly that. He won’t get to fix her leaking tap in the kitchen, his bathroom door, the coffee powder on the counter, the missing socks. He won’t get to hug her fully into his chest, just one arm draped around her back like a missing piece of a puzzle undone by formidable damage. Where she was always yellow, even on her bad days, he was always blue and though sometimes it wasn’t all bad to be blue, she always made him green with her energy.

 

“You know why she would want to celebrate? Buck?”

 

The name catches him because Sam has only ever called him that whenever they were alone and if it were any other time or around the squadron, he would call him by his first. He sits up with a bit of difficulty, wincing as his loyal friend offers a hand to help him and he thinks, it shouldn’t be this hard to sit up. He leans back on the headboard and lays one leg over the other crossing at his feet as he pulls his earphones away.

 

 

“Sometimes… I try to forget it’s not… not there. That I can look down and still see both my palms, and when I’m getting dressed, the one sleeve isn’t just hanging there, empty,” he says and tries to look elsewhere than him, but he takes a deep breath and turns to find his friend there.

 

“I feel like… like a fucking balloon,” he scoffs, shaking his head as he said so, his disbelief just as tangible as it was to breathe.

 

“It was that easy to pop off one limb, and who knows, maybe I should’ve just popped off too out there-”

 

“Buck.”

 

Bucky swallows and closes his eyes.

 

“Go home, Buck. Your daughter is waiting for you too.”

 

He starts shaking his head and pursing his lips because he doesn’t want to. At least not yet. He doesn’t want to go home, but a small part of his brain remembers the day he left her, the same day they said their three words to each other and in a way it became their thing. Their three words. But he also remembers a photo she sent only months after he left. A picture of her holding a onesie with a print in green that said ‘Can’t wait to meet my daddy’, and he remembers crying tears of joy, but it was also the day they were called to a mission that would take him almost 2 years to be relieved of. Had T’Challa been here, he probably would have been the skeptical one, always making sure everyone was accounted for and he would be the only person to conform Sam into seriousness, and along with this, he wonders if it would’ve made a difference. He draws a conclusion, no.

 

“Buck, I know Shuri enough to say this. That she would rather you come home, yes with one less a limb, but you wanna know what else?”

 

“No,” his reply, curt, cold and somber because he likes to think he’s made up his mind.

 

“She would rather you come home, than not come at all.”

 

He doesn’t even realize it, but by the tremor of his shoulders, his friends' reassuring hug, the way he’s sniffling, the salty tracks of his tears dropping off his chin and he doesn’t care if anybody else would walk in to find him like this.

 

* * *

 

When he steps onto the tarmac and sees her in the crowd, her quirky Christmas earrings dangling from her ears, a stroller beside her and he wants to start running because he needs her to wrap him up and cuddle their small little thing between their chests being careful enough to at least not suffocate each other from their squeeze.

 

But when she breathes against his neck and tells him she loves him, in that sincere way that leaves no room for doubt or fear, engraved deep like a thundering pound into his heart. As long as he’s home. As long as he’s got his girls, when she finally releases him, and he can see her silently crying, as she turns the stroller for him to find the sleeping babe, at first glance, he sees all of him and all of her in the little one and coming home proved to be a lot more rewarding than a metal of merit.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's been while hey... Drop some comments about how terrible it is to not update anything in almost 3 months.... *nervous laugh*
> 
> [I get inspired by songs when I'm writing - So How to Fly by Sticky Fingers takes the cherry for this one](https://open.spotify.com/user/f09dfzl2hi7zqvty9aih3ascu/playlist/4n1fA785GKLkKCe82NzHI2?si=KwWj7A3-ReafSAU7bW8ocw)


End file.
